CapaCITIES 2.0 is designed as a support action for national and regional authorities to advance their governance structures for providing dedicated support for cities to achieve the EU Climate-Neutral and Smart Cities Mission (EU Cities Mission) - answering to the Call HORIZON-MISS-2024-CIT-02-01. As a central initiative to foster and strengthen national narratives for the EU Cities Mission, it will coordinate actions across climate-neutral initiatives for cities in Europe, align and speed up efforts towards the goals of the Mission. CapaCITIES 2.0 will further shape a European environment conducive to urban climate neutrality transitions for national, regional and local authorities. It will initiate and strengthen national change processes to establish and mature national networks and platforms as well as multi-level governance in the entire EU, building on the experience of the CapaCITIES that already started setting-up national platforms in 15 EU countries. It provides dedicated support for public authorities to put enabling conditions and measures for cities in place to achieve the EU Cities Mission. Thereby, it contributes to reach (1) Increased preparedness and capacity of national, regional and local authorities in EU Member States and countries associated to Horizon Europe to engage in cities’ transition towards climate neutrality; (2) Improved ability to effectively address country-specific challenges and barriers for cities to achieve climate neutrality related to current regulatory frameworks, funding and financing, and governance structures and promotion of best-practices through transnational exchanges and sharing of experience and (3) Enhanced synergies with R&I national/international communities, relevant initiatives, and partnerships such as the ‘Driving Urban Transitions to a Sustainable Future’ Horizon Europe Partnership and the NetZeroCities – the EU Mission Platform(NZC) for the implementation of the Climate-Neutral and Smart Cities Mission.

The goal of the EXCITE project is to apply the well-established energy management scheme of the European Energy Award (eea) in Central and Eastern European municipalities, enabling them to become trusted partners to the investors and engaging local communities for deliberate climate action. This, on its end, will help attract new innovative businesses to the involved cities and municipalities and will intensify the local economies, supporting them in the surge for better living standard and maintaining young and vibrant communities proactively contributing to the energy transition. Through applying the methodology the eea methodology, the project will enhance the implementation of energy efficiency measures at local level through securing the necessary technical, economic and social conditions for attracting of private investors, promoting public entrepreneurship and successful leveraging of the scarce public resources. As achievement this goal requires broad public support, the project will invest significant efforts in developing interface capacities for engagement with the civil society and incentivize local communities to proactively use the available opportunities, becoming a driving force in the European energy transition. The actions will also support the implementation of the Covenant of Mayors, enabling more municipalities to join the initiative and serving as major data input and result monitoring tool for the actual implementation of the Sustainable Energy and Climate Action Plans (SECAPs) of the involved municipalities. Last but not least, the embracing of the eea methodology will become the basis of an action-oriented peer learning platform, transferring experience and know-how from already well-developed Austrian, Swiss and French municipalities but also enabling peer to peer learning between cities in Eastern Europe, gradually shifting to more sustainable practices in their economic and social development.

CapaCITIES will shape a European environment conducive to urban climate neutrality transitions for national, regional and local authorities. The project aims to initiate and strengthen national change processes by establishing national networks and governance structures and by providing dedicated support for public authorities to put enabling conditions and measures for cities in place for achieving the cities mission. To achieve this ambition, the CapaCITIES consortium represents 15 European countries who have committed to initiative and strengthen national change processes by ministerial or other high political level. CapaCITIES thereby build on a well-established network of national authorities (national ministries and agencies responsible for urban transition) with its relevant urban stakeholder organisations beyond the consortium partners and countries. To all project partners CapaCITIES offers dedicated services to in support of national change process. First, a transnational alliance for public authorities to exchange, learn and inspire each other in their transition towards climate neutral cities. Second, support in prototyping innovative multi-level and cross sector governance structures. Third, thematic capacity building for public authorities and support in taking effective local action and fourth, strategic synergies and access to other initiatives that address the climate neutral and smart cities mission.

IncorporatEE project aims to realise EUR 60 million of total investments (EUR 32 million in energy-related measures) in major renovations, improvement of building services and installation of renewable energy sources in public buildings in the city of Salzburg and Villach. These savings will not only be calculated at the design stage, but will be guaranteed by an innovative quality management process up to commissioning. In this way, energy savings of 55% and CO2 savings of 65% can be achieved in building operation during comprehensive renovations, which means an increase of around 30 percentage points compared to previous renovations. In order to achieve this goal, it is necessary to turn not just one but many set screws. The new Performance-Based-Renovation-Package (PeBaRePa) is the sum total of these set screws for renovations. This package is designed to ensure the implementation of performance-based objectives all the way through to operation. This package comprises the following components: - Establishment and training of a dedicated organisational unit in the cities responsible for implementing energy performance quality assurance - Developing internal financing models within the city in order to be able to finance investments in energy-efficient renovations in the long term - Development of innovative, performance-related contracts for planners to provide financial incentives to plan and implement high energy performance - Development of a catalogue for sustainable refurbishment of public buildings specifically for the requirements and specifications of the participating cities - Development and adaptation of a quality assurance process from planning to commissioning of buildings - Development of business models for energy communities for photovoltaics during roof refurbishment The PeBaRePa will be disseminated nationally and internationally to public authorities as well as to planners and developers.